But a quote which stuck in my head today was "If life doesn't get in the way of blogging every once in a while, maybe you should try blogging less and living more." Well, I haven't had much time for blogging at all lately, in case you haven't noticed. Today is MY day. Breathing space. I've purchased the major Christmas stuff, but I need to go out and get stocking stuffers. And then there's church. Since I'm choir director, I have to be at the chapel every time the choir is needed. We have a Nativity pageant tonight, Sunday Mass tomorrow, Midnight Mass for Christmas Monday night and Christmas Mass on Tuesday. By Wednesday I'm going to be wiped out and ready for another vacation.

I don't know if many people who attend Mass know the sheer amount of effort it takes to make everything run smoothly. From the choir, to the Eucharistic ministers, to all the other volunteers who work in the background, it takes a lot of people so that everyone can come in and have mass. A LOT of people. And it's hard work. Once I leave Puerto Rico, I'm not going to be a choir director for a good long while, because honestly I just want to be able to enjoy mass for the first time in a long time instead of having some responsibility to attend to. Add in much of the other volunteer work I do for the chapel, and I haven't been able to sit in the pews for about two years now. I've always been doing something during mass.

But I'll tell you this: I have a much better understanding of what a priest goes through on a daily basis. It's an eye opener. If the military actually paid their Catholic chaplains what they were worth, i.e. the true value that they bring, they would get paid more than any general. And I'm blessed to have a darn good priest.

Anyways, I'm off to hit the showers and then find some stocking stuffers for the Ragin' Mrs. I'll see you all tomorrow.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Charlie's movieIt couldn't have been Reagan that won the Cold War... it must have been a sophmoric partying Senator, "Good Time Charlie"... and:

...the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately produced the attacks of September 11, 2001...

That anti-American aspect of the film, namely that the Afghan operation ultimately caused the September 11 attacks, reportedly was altered after protests from Mr. Wilson and his former fiancee, Joanne Herring....

"Senior people in the Reagan administration, the president, [CIA Director] Bill Casey, [Defense Secretary Caspar] Weinberger and their aides deserve credit for the successful Afghan covert action program, not just Charlie Wilson," -- Fred Ikle, the undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration...

Bin Laden, the officials said, never got CIA funding or weapons, and was not directly involved in Islamist extremist activities until years after the Afghan operation ended after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989.

I knew it the second I saw the first TV ad... Just ask yourself what kind of movie Alan Sorkin of TV's propaganda series 'West Wing' would make... because he did. This one.Cross Posted at DANEgerus

I haven't been big on Mike Huckabee. No big deal. I think that Fred D. Thompson should be our nominee. But this shows that Huckabee just isn't fit to be President at all. In fact, I think it's emblematic of the problem the GOP has as a whole; they've lost touch with their base, and when the base tries to get them to listen, they insult the very people who support them.

To wit, the closest thing Rush Limbaugh has said in favor of any candidate was some favorable comments towards Fred Thompson. He has effectively been neutral, which is a hard thing to do in this election. And yet Huckabee's campaign felt the need to attack Rush Limbaugh? Stupid. Unbelievably stupid. Just flat out idiotic. It would be like Hillary Clinton launching an attack on Kos, or Glenn(s) Greenwald. You don't attack the people who are on your side, period. Debate them, argue with them, try to sway them to your point of view, fine. But what the Huckabee campaign has done shows that they're simply not able to deal with the Presidency.

Clinton falsely claims guardsmen and reservists didn't have health insurance before she went to work.

She has to lie because, in spite of the (D)emocrat majority in both Houses of Congress, Hillary(D) and Obama(D) have Zero, Nada, Zip legislation to their credit.

Isn't it amazing the (D)emocrats, who followed up a loon like Al Gore(D), with a bombastic dishonorably discharged traitor like John Kerry(D), are now offering up a trio of Senators whose qualifications are in turn, "Nice Hair even if he can't get reelected", "Almost Black" and "My Husband was President so I can be too"...

So by now most people have seen the picture of Hillary Clinton looking rather ragged. For those who have somehow missed it, Kim du Toit has a picture up. As for me, my only thought when I first saw the photo was:

Remember folks, when the Democrat American Communist Party mouths platitudes to the troops, THAT is when they're lying. It's when they think no one is listening that they tell the truth about how they feel about the military.

I certainly haven't been kind when it comes to mocking Britney Spears, and I admit that. Sometimes the easy shots are the first ones you take. But dammit, I'm actually starting to feel sorry for her right now, especially with this news coming out about her sister being pregnant. Her sister is SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, and had a NINETEEN YEAR OLD LIVE IN BOYFRIEND.

Uh.... what? Just who the hell decided that this was a good idea? "Why yes, it's perfectly OK for your raging-hormone-filled boyfriend to sleep in bed with you! I'm sure that nothing will happen! What? You're pregnant? Gosh, what a surprise! Who woulda thunk it?"

Here's my take: The Spears' mother needs to be taken out back and horse-whipped until she obtains ambient air temperature. If you want to know why Britney and her sister are so screwed up, all you have to do is look at the parents. Or parent, in this case. Britney was turned into a sex object at what... fifteen or sixteen? And her parents got rich. Oh, Britney got rich too, but where do you think her money went to? A mutual fund? IRA? Low-risk investments? Hell no, the parents got it. They turned their daughter into a highly-paid stripper so that they could fill their bank account, and they did it when she was young. How many of you would allow your teenage daughter to cavort around in panties and bra in front of thousands of people? "Yeah, open your legs wider darling! And make sure they can see your boobs, just not the nipples. Here, grind against this pole while you stroke some guy's leg! Yeah, that's hot! We'll be rich!"

And then you wonder why Britney turned into a drug-smoking alcoholic who can't take care of her kids? She's only doing what she learned to do from HER mother. And little sis is only following in Britney's footsteps. Most younger siblings I know of wanted to be like their older brother or sister at some point, so it should be no surprise that little sis copied Britney's behaviors. She's only doing what SHE has been taught to do.

I honestly never want to hear about any member of the Spears family ever again. They're up there on a list with Paris Hilton as people I don't want to know about, hear about, or see ever again in my life. But despite all of my mocking, I just want to drive home the point that if Britney and her sister actually had a real mother, rather than an egg-donor who calls herself a mother, I probably wouldn't have a chance to mock them at all. I wouldn't feel the need.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

FARGO, N.D. — A bank is giving its full-time employees $1,000 each and part-time employees $500 each. There's one condition — use it for people in need.

State Bank & Trust Chief Operating Officer Michael Solberg said each full-time employee will receive $1,000 and each part-time employee will receive $500, as part of a $502,000 "Pay it Forward" initiative.

"We're going to really see some huge impact on our community," Solberg said.Employees were told not to use the money for themselves, their families or families of other bank employees. The bank asked each employee to document the good deed with a video camera. The deadline is June 30.

The employees were told they may choose an individual cause, pool their money for a larger project or collaborate with donors outside the bank. The privately owned bank has more than 500 employees, he said.

I'll bet anyone my entire paycheck that the money being put out by this bank will be better used and more appreciated than any government-funded giveaway.

A 10-year-old Florida girl faces felony weapons charges after bringing a small steak knife to school to cut up her lunch, according to a report on WFTV.com.

School officials say the Ocala 5th grader had brought a piece of steak for her lunch, and had brought a steak knife. According to the report, a couple of teachers took the utensil and called authorities, who arrested the girl and took her to the county’s juvenile assessment center.

Arrested? For a frigging STEAK knife? That she was using to cut STEAK with?

"She did not use it inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn't pull it out and brandish it. Nothing of that nature," explained Marion County School Spokesman Kevin Christian, who added that it made no difference what the knife was being used for, they had no choice but to call police.

You can chalk this up as yet another reason why public schools are failing shitholes, cesspools of mediocrity at best, and festering pits of despair all too often. Maybe if they would expell the bullies, the drug pushers and the thugs, they wouldn't have to worry about a ten year old girl using a knife TO CUT A STEAK.

Monday, December 17, 2007

I had a thought the other day. The Raging_Dave knows where this comes from. Here it is...

Being in Puerto Rico, it has become painfully obvious how much we depend on our health care in the USA. The Raging_Dave will attest to the fact that we live are lives based on the fact that we *DO NOT WANT TO END UP IN AN E-ROOM DOWN HERE!!!!!!* The reality is that the medical here is unsanitary witchdoctory at best. I would assume it is about on par with most countries that have socialized medicine. We know, in the USA, that if we do something stupid and nearly end our own lives, we will be airlifted to the closest trauma unit, and unlike Humpty Dumpty, be put back together again. Unfortunately this has three probable negative effects:1) Darwinism has not been allowed to work. This means that stupid people that *should have* died, did not.2) The only thing, that these same said stupid people, learned was that they are immortal and there are no consequences for their actions, especially since they will probably opt not to pay, or go bankrupt on their multi-million dollar hospital bill.3) If John Joe is not put back into OEM, he will more than likely sue and win a multi-million dollar settlement for pain and suffering, after all real damages!

Unfortunately the end result are people who have no concept of reality, more than likely a complete disconnect from their actions having any consequence, except that they get rewarded for their stupidity.

I wish I believed their was a way to educate these people. Unfortunately it is human nature to focus on what we want to. I believe that if forced to live with the consequences of their actions they will fall into a state of denial rather than understanding the gravity of the situation.

I have been a long time believer that medical advances are disrupting nature taking her course. But, as much as this pains me to say, peoples own greed is rapidly taking our medical advances away from us. Through our legal system; malpractice suits, valid or not, having multi million dollar judgments for pain and suffering, our medical practitioners are being taken from us because they can no longer afford the malpractice insurance. Malpractice insurance is not rated by how many times a particular practitioner has been sued, it is by the number of times practitioners of that field are sued. Whether the suits are successful or not, does not matter. The insurance company still had to pay for the lawyer(s). A few years ago you would have been hard pressed to find an OBGYN in Nevada due to these suits. There are many ideas of how to fix this problem. On site I ran across suggested"Improving health care quality and lowering costs by fixing our medical liability system". This is a current trend that many states are moving toward. Despite this recognition of a problem and necessary solution, some states such as California refuse to vote limits of liability into law. If this continues, their already strained(by illegal immigrants) medical system will be crippled until it is reformed.

After an initial review of the legislation, several wasteful and unnecessary provisions have already been identified:

• Earmarks: Instead of reducing the number of pork projects in the federal budget, the bill drives the number of earmarks up from last year. The bill contains over 8,000 earmarks, bringing the total for 2008 up to over 10,000 earmarks compared to just 2,658 in 2007.

• Spending Gimmicks: Instead of cutting wasteful spending out of the bill to bring its cost down to the President’s level, the bill uses budget tricks and gimmicks to hide at least $14 billion in extra domestic spending.

• Policy Riders: Instead of limiting the package to spending needed to fund government operations, the bill includes unrelated policy items. Many of these riders are backed by special interests, such as organized labor, and could not win passageon their own.

But the Darkest element of Mark Penn's close relationship with Hillary is his past relationship with the Clinton WhiteHouse as an international influence peddler. Clinton WhiteHouse insider Dick Morris details that in Clinton's Conflict of Interest:

“Running a presidential campaign is good for business.” -- Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist and the Worldwide CEO of international public relations/ lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller

...During Bill Clinton’s second term, while Penn was the president’s chief political strategist — with unfettered access to the President and First Lady, his polling firm, Penn & Schoen, contracted to lobby the Clinton administration on behalf of a bank operated by several Central American countries — for a half million dollar fee....Burson-Marsteller ultimately bought Penn & Schoen and Penn became its head honcho....The firm’s publicly known clients are a veritable Who’s Who of corporations in crisis, as well as companies and foreign governments looking for favors from Congress and the White House....Blackwater’s CEO, Eric Prince, hired Burson’s lobbying subsidiary, BKSH, to prep him for his Congressional testimony......Countrywide Financial, the beleaguered sub-prime mortgage lender that is desperately trying to save the company and clean up its image....Microsoft — trying to stop the Google/Doubleclick merger....Armenia, (trying to pass a Congressional resolution accusing Turkey of genocide)...The Peoples Party of Pakistan (working to bring Bhalizar Bhutto back to power in Pakistan)....When Rove became Bush’s chief strategist, he sold his consulting business. Penn refuses to even take a leave of absence. Although he claims to have no involvement in the firm’s day-to-day business, published internal e-mails suggest otherwise. And, Penn demonstrated his blatant lack of sensitivity to conflict of interest issues during the last Clinton administration.

In October 1998, while Penn was the White House chief political strategist, he registered his polling firm, Penn & Schoen, as an agent for the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, operated, and controlled by Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua with Mexico, Taiwan, Argentina, and Colombia as additional shareholders.

In plain English, a number of foreign governments, seeking to persuade the President of the United States to adopt legislation in their economic interest, paid the president’s trusted adviser to make their case in the White House....what is it that did Penn inside the White House — for half a million dollars — to advance the foreign bank’s agenda?...Last year, Burson-Marsteller’s parent company, WPP, raked in more than $53 million in fees from its various U.S. lobbying affiliates. ...Burson-Marsteller is a major player in the world of corporate and political spinning, with offices all over the globe. A short list of clients are as followed: Phillip Morris, Occidental Petroleum, Bristol-Meyers, Entergy (nuclear power), Lockheed Martin, Texaco, AT&T, Allergen (makers of Botox), Greece, Taiwan, Cyprus, Virginia Tech, Doha16. Qatar (to try to get the 2016 Olympics there), Comcast, Sony Ericcson, Ikea, the National Fisheries Institute, Visa International and many, many others.

In the past, the company has also represented the Chinese National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC) (Burson operates over one hundred offices — including four separate offices in China), the Russian Government Press Office, Haiti, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Ahmed Chalabi, the disgraced president of the Iraqi National Congress who pushed for the overthrow of Saddam. But most of the firm’s clients remain secret: Unless direct lobbying is involved, there is no disclosure requirement.